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.ORG, The Public Interest Registry Advances and Makes Strides with Domain Name Security Extensions

Posted on July 22nd, 2009

The .ORG Registry continues its commitment to bolstering the future of Internet security

Reston, VA – July 22, 2009 – .ORG, The Public Interest Registry (www.pir.org) announces today the achievement of key milestones with Domain Name Security Extensions (DNSSEC). PIR is dedicated to transparency in its implementation and sharing lessons learned with the Internet infrastructure community, with the goal of widespread adoption of DNSSEC. DNSSEC is a very important starting point that will allow companies to evaluate how to secure the many applications that are intertwined with DNS.

"DNSSEC is a critical part of our mission to lead the upgrade of Internet infrastructure and ensure online safety for current and future generations of users," says Alexa Raad, CEO of .ORG, The Public Interest Registry. "We are committed to lead the way and demonstrate the feasibility of this important security measure for the rest of the industry."

Key Milestones for DNSSEC within the .ORG Domain include:

.ORG was successfully signed with DNSSEC on June 2, 2009

The .ORG key was pushed to the Interim Trust Anchor Repository (ITAR) on June 26, 2009 and picked up by the DNSSEC Look-Aside Validation (DLV) on July 6, 2009.

Successful manual insertion of DNSSEC data for 18 domains in the Friends & Family phase

The first scheduled Zone Signing Key (ZSK) rollover was successfully completed on July 2, 2009.

PIR has successfully signed 18 domains that will be tested in a controlled environment during its Friends & Family phase. PIR will work closely with each domain holder through every phase of the testing to mitigate risks and capture lessons learned prior to the scheduled 2010 full production launch.

"We are happy to be PIR’s technical provider in its DNSSEC enablement, ensuring that .ORG is a pioneer in improving Internet security not only for .ORG site owners, but for the billions of people who visit their sites daily," said Ram Mohan, Executive Vice President and CTO at Afilias.

Alexa Raad, CEO of .ORG, The Public Interest Registry and Ram Mohan, CTO and EVP of Afilias provide a brief video statement on the need for Domain Name System Security Extensions (DNSSEC) in the community and their dedication to widespread adoption and deployment within the Domain Name industry.

About Domain Name Security Extensions (DNSSEC)
With DNSSEC, Internet users know that their Internet-based communications such as web site visits and email correspondence actually connect to the parties they intend to reach. DNSSEC thwarts attacks such as pharming, cache poisoning, and DNS redirection that have been used to commit fraud, distribute malware, or steal personal or confidential information. For more information on DNSSEC, please visit http://pir.org/dnssec.

About .ORG, The Public Interest Registry
Trusted across all ages, backgrounds and nationalities, .ORG is where people turn to find credible information, get involved, fund causes and support advocacy. .ORG, The Public Interest Registry empowers the global noncommercial community to use the Internet more effectively and, concurrently, takes a leadership position among Internet stakeholders on policy and related issues. The .ORG domain is the Internet’s third largest "generic" or non-country specific top-level domain with more than 7 million domain names registered worldwide. .ORG, The Public Interest Registry, was founded by the Internet Society in 2002. It is based in Reston, Virginia, USA.